Posted on 01/17/2026 3:41:37 AM PST by Adder
Archaeologists in Turkey have discovered a third-century mural depicting Jesus as the good shepherd.
The mural, which remains in relatively good condition, is the centerpiece of a number of frescoes in an underground tomb in the Hisardere necropolis near the town of Iznik.
While Iznik might not be a familiar name to many, its ancient name, Nicaea, may be better known to Christians.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianpost.com ...
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
“A very Roman looking depiction of Our Lord.”
Depicts Jesus with short hair. Jewish law forbade men to wear their hair long. Even Paul mentioned it. By long, it meant like a woman.
The Romans had to have someone to identify Jesus. If he looked as depicted today, that would not have been necessary. Men did not wear their hair long at that time.
I saw some photos of American men before the Civil War. They all had bushy hair, so to speak, but it was cut off above the collar.
My immediate first thought 🦃🤣
I read a long time ago that renditions of Jesus were many and varied until the shroud of Turin became better known, then they coalesced into the common rendition of today.
It didn’t say Jesus was in Turkey. I think Paul was in that area.
The shroud is either a fake or it’s a work of Satan. If Jesus had long hair, he would stick out like a sore thumb.
Commas save lives.
The Shroud of Turin is an early depiction of the Zig-Zag man.
Uh oh, now they're toast.
What's the Ebay bid up to?
"I told you we put it in too early."
Jesus he's enough to give one pause.
Agreed. Though obviously the Jewish leaders allowed men to take the Nazarite vow, which including not cutting his hair for the duration of the vow. There’s nothing to indicate that Jesus took the vow. Quite the contrary. Jesus did things like drink wine (not done during the vow). So the longest I can imagine Jesus’ hair being is as depicted in The Chosen.
The headline suggests that the fresco depicts Jesus in Turkey, a country that would not exist until the Middle Ages.
I agree that it's Roman looking. I saw some early Christian art in Rome that was similar.
The shroud is the most scientifically studied artifact in all of history, and there is no evidence, that hasn’t already been debunked, that it is fake.
Regarding hair length:
“ The pictures we have of Jesus with long hair do not derive from any physical description we have of him in the Bible, because there is none. The basic image comes from a long artistic and iconographic tradition—influenced, among other things, by the Shroud of Turin. However, this tradition does not contradict the Bible.
Part of the problem in discussing hair length is how long is long? We know from archeological materials such as Middle Eastern carvings and Egyptian tomb paintings that Jews wore what we would consider today as long hair and beards. Hair reached down to the shoulders on men. Women wore hair down to the waist.
St. Paul was telling Corinthian men that wearing hair down to the waist as women did would be effeminate and contrary to what natural law would suggest, especially considering the physical demands of many first-century male occupations. It is easy for us today to assume the length and cut of a Jewish man’s hair in the first century to be as it is for most men today, but that’s a misconception that can result in our misreading Paul.”
So it was made around three hundred years after Jesus was crucified. If that were in today’s time, we would be talking about a historical figure from 1776... like George Washington.
Alas, looks like there's a misspelled keyword, "Nicea", that has a few, probably duplicated topics in it. The rest are above this post somewhere.
The 19th century was one long bad hair day.
I am continually amazed that many aren’t aware that Paul wrote to the Christian churches that are geographically now in Moose Limb Turkey. Turkey had a significant Christian population until the Moose Limbs took over and prosecuted them almost out of existence.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
